Home to AFL greats, the historic 153-year-old Maryborough Football Club is on the brink of collapse
It’s the home to many AFL greats including Hall of Fame inaugural Legend John Nicholls, but after 153 years, the historic Maryborough FC is on the brink of collapse, with locals declaring it a failure to the community.
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They breed them tough up Maryborough way.
But this might be the heartbeat of the Victorian goldfields town’s toughest test.
The 153-year-old club - home to Hall of Fame inaugural Legend John Nicholls and a raft of AFL stars - is in recess this season and on the brink of collapse amid a lengthy and arduous fight to keep the historic club alive.
Most players have moved clubs this season, just wanting to play. But most, according to one, would return in a heartbeat with a majority of the team still keeping in touch.
Young defender Kya Lanfranchi had played all his footy for the club – since he was 10 – and was part of the 2024 Magpies outfit before the club opted to leave the Bendigo Football Netball League (BFNL) last year due to weekly struggles against stronger opponents.
He’s since moved to fellow BFNL club Strathfieldsaye while the Magpies were without a home.
It had been a tough gig at Maryborough in recent seasons, playing as key back in a side that was avalanched nearly every week, often by hundreds of points.
But it was also a club that has meant so much to him, having seen three generations of his family play there.
“You don’t realise until the club is actually gone how much you rely on it and how much it is a part of your life,” Lanfranchi, 22, said this week.
“You think you’re always going to have the footy club there every year, but it’s not the case anymore.
“The sadder thing is we have about 18 or 19 netballers that are no longer playing because they couldn’t get a spot in a local team around the area.
“The supporters ... they just love it.
“As a community, we’ve failed (if we lose it). There just isn’t enough support around the community for this club.
“The community should be getting behind the team that holds the name of the town and doing everything they can to get them back up on their feet, or at least just give them a chance at survival.
“That's all we’re asking as a club. We just want a chance.”
As well as the heavy losses, there had also been declining player numbers and pressure on wholehearted volunteers, which made it a tough grind for the club, with a vote last June to determine whether it went into recess or merging with another team.
The eye had once been on returning to the BFNL in 2026, but the club recently launched a bid to join the Maryborough Castlemaine District League next season in the hope to find its feet again and reload — maybe back to the Bendigo competition if all went well after a few years.
Current MCDFNL clubs voted on the club’s second formal application in as many years a fortnight ago. Maryborough, central geographically to the competition, needed 75 per cent of the 20 votes.
It was a no.
In a statement, AFL Victoria said it: “does not have the legal jurisdiction to overturn or change the final vote of a league”, saying it would “continue to provide support to Maryborough on any future applications” to another league.
The failed vote has left the fate of one of Victoria’s — and the country’s — oldest football clubs hanging precariously in the balance as it desperately seeks another league to take it on.
And tensions are high, with at least one sponsor of a number of MCDFL clubs - and Maryborough - threatening to pull their dollars from any club they discover voted against the move.
Hall of Fame Legend Nicholls, 85, grew up in Maryborough, playing alongside his brother Don — a teenage star — told this masthead that to lose what sits among the oldest clubs in the country would be “incredibly sad”.
“I’m sad, and I’m also well aware it’s not the only country club that’s either gone out of existence or had to amalgamate,” Nicholls said this week.
“I was the No. 1 ticket holder for a period about 15 years ago and I’ve gone to fundraising functions, but the people I talk to … they’re just so frustrated and don’t know what to do next.
“They’ve provided a lot of great sportspeople over the years from the area.”
He’s keen to engage the AFL, imploring the league to do whatever it can before it is too late for the club that has seen a steady stream of players flow to the top flight for over a century — including the likes of Nicholls himself, three-time Richmond best and fairest in the 1960s Ron Branton and current premiership stars.
One netballer said this week that she had “grown up in black, white and teal” and that she hoped the league “understand the impact their decision will have on teenagers like me”.
“(My family, who have been involved in the club for generations) all taught me the value of being part of a club that was ilke having another family who would always look out for you,” she wrote on social media.
“It’s just sad that I won’t be able to follow in their footsteps.”
Those against the club’s hoped-for move in the MCDFNL have privately cited fears of losing players to Maryborough and its eventual strength in the league.
For now the club remains in limbo.
The Central Highlands League could be an option, or Loddon Valley as the club — led by president Glen Bardsley — desperate to remain operational.
Former AFL player Jed Adcock grew up on the historic Princes Park ground – kicking the Sherrin until Saturdays grew dark and made his senior debut as a Magpie at 15.
He’s one of a swag of players who have either gone on to AFL or returned to the club after a stint in the big league, including 121-game Hawk Ron Nalder, Kevin Connell, Graeme Whitnall, ex-Bomber Stewart Crameri and current Brisbane forward Kai Lohmann.
“As a footy player, your best memories as a kid is growing up in footy clubs (like Maryborough),” Adcock said.
“It’s the best time. You’re running around the clubrooms, you’re out on the oval and it’s pitch black and you’re still trying to kick the footy to each other having kicked the dew off at 8am.
“Inside for a bucket of chips or a soup of the night and there’s no better place to be.
“To think that will be gone is just astounding. It’s astounding.”
Lions premiership hero Lohmann’s mum Brooke was the junior president when he was growing up, of a club that he says was like so many in country towns — the centre of the community.
“The club is everything to the town,” Lohmann told this masthead this week.
“It’s so important because there’s so much history there and it means so much to all the supporters who would come and watch every week without fail.
“It would incredibly sad if the club didn’t exist because I am told a lot of young kids look up to players like me and others that went from the Maryborough Magpies to the AFL and want to follow in our footsteps.”
The junior club — the Rovers — remains in competition.
Lohmann and brother Jake won an Under 14s flag together, but the aspiration was always senior footy with the Magpies.
“As kids we looked up to the senior players and then we knew that if you wanted to play at a higher level, it was the club to be at as there’s great exposure to the talent leagues,” he said.
“In the end, I might not be where I am today if it wasn’t for the club, the coaches and everyone involved that helped us boys become the players and people we are today.”
A statement issued by the club in the wake of the vote declared it would remain committed to exhausting every avenue before conceding defeat.
But Adcock, now an assistant coach at North Melbourne after 213 AFL games for Brisbane and the Western Bulldogs, is worried about the flow on effects no footy will have.
“The sad thing in this is out of the say 40 players at the Maryborough footy club right now. I reckon half of them would go on and play somewhere else. But half of them will be gone,” Adcock said.
“They won’t play again and you’re losing those people and their families to the game.
“It goes beyond. You’d hope it doesn’t get to that.
“(Once it’s gone), there’s no coming back.”
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Originally published as Home to AFL greats, the historic 153-year-old Maryborough Football Club is on the brink of collapse
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